Edwin MacInnes was lounging half-asleep on the hotel bed when the phrase “This am good stuff” spewed from the television. The screen showed a face very close to the camera, saying “You want bite of eat? Not time enough for food real? Pop a snack top of handy Puffin’ Pita, packed is with real bacon and cheddar cheese!”

Oh Lord, he thought. Between cartoons spouting lines like “I are Weasel!” and ads announcing “This am good stuff,” the English language was doomed. He’d watched so much of this TV crap during his life he could feel the overflow of bad programming leaking out his ears.

Edwin’s stomach growled, announcing that it wanted dinner. He rolled off the creaky bed and padded across the shabby carpet, heading toward the bathroom to wash up and make himself presentable. He’d been sweet talking a cutie pie over at the diner for three nights now, priming her for a date. Edwin’s job would keep him in town at least another month and he didn’t want to spend all that time alone.

“Coming up later tonight,” said a voice from the television, “News Ten have exclusive footage of an twister that touched down outside Lawton, Oklahoma, and see how Senator Kennedy started uproar his with comments gun control.”

Edwin frowned at his image in the dingy mirror, absently wondering what was wrong with the television. Was it a question of bad grammar, or the audio circuit mangling words? He splashed water in his face, dried off, combed his hair, and examined himself again. Face okay. Hair okay. He turned, shut off the light, and headed for the door.

“…Christopher be three-and-half when emergency cut short,” said a woman on the TV. “Be he thirteen now—” Edwin shut it off on his way out.

The diner was across the street and a half-block up, a brisk walk through the cool fall air. He passed his livelihood — a big ugly vacuum truck — gave it a quick check for oil leaks or unlocked compartments, then headed across the street. Peering through the plate glass windows of the diner, he spotted Barbara Ann, a handsome aging blonde with bright eyes, a quick smile, and no wedding ring. She poured coffee and chatted merrily to another patron.

Putting on the smiling, confident face he used for winning over women, Edwin entered the diner. Inside it smelled of steak, fries, beer, and cigarettes. “Hey Barbara,” he said to the waitress. “Another hard day over.”

“You hungry tonight?”

“You bet I am.”

“Well come over here and sit down,” she said. “I’ll fix you right up.” She smiled at him, and he smiled right back, and as he sat down it occurred to him that they were both wearing the same mask. Not genuine smiles, but smiles that were a front, a shield between them and the rest of the world, something to make a good impression that had nothing to do with how they really felt.

It deflated his mood, leaving him feeling stupid and lonely. Edwin relaxed his face, and his smile ebbed. “Steak and eggs,” he said.

Barbara Ann stood with her pad, staring at it and not him. “Not chicken fried steak tonight?”

“No.”

“How do you want the steak?”

“Rare.”

“Fries or baked potato?”

“Fries.”

“Coke or Beer?”

“Beer.”

Something in his tone made her look up from her pad. “Something wrong?”

“Yeah. I was going to ask you out.”

That caught her off guard. She stared at him for a few seconds, blinking, and her smile faltered. “You were?” she said finally.

“Yes. I thought maybe a movie after you get off work.”

“I don’t get off until midnight.”

“That’s what just occurred to me.” It was a lie, but it sounded good. “It must be hard with this shift.”

“Not really.” A few moments passed, then she said, “Why were you going to ask me out?”

“You’re not wearing a ring.”

“Oh.” Suddenly conscious of her naked finger, she seemed not to know what to do with her hand. “Well,” she said, “um, let me go get your order in.”

“Okay.” He watched as she walked away, and sighed. Boy, he thought, I messed that up.

A TV hung from the wall off in a corner, the volume down low. Every once in a while he caught snatches of dialog. He’d seen the show, a sitcom where were four young women lived together in a beach apartment, and all but one seemed to be in love with the handyman. “…I be thinking, Mr. Ro-ma-no,” the typecast airhead blonde was saying, “if you am lend me your car, we can bling moth things at once.” The actress had enormous breasts, simply unreal spheres with big nipples poking hard against her blouse, and she pushed them forward at the greasy-looking Mr. Romano. “What think you?”

“Here’s your coke,” Barbara said, returning with a tall plastic glass.

“Thanks,” he said.

“How about Friday night?” she said.

“What?”

“I’m off Friday. Is that good for you?”

Now his smile was genuine. He could actually feel his mood rising, an elevator-going-up sensation. “Yes,” he told her, “Friday is very good for me.”

She pulled out her pen and wrote her phone number on a napkin. Her smile seemed genuine as well.

#

Edwin’s standing joke was that his job sucked, but he loved it anyway. He didn’t really, but he was at least used to it, and took pride in being an expert at something. Driving the vacuum truck paid well but forced him to be a vagabond. During his rare off-times, when work slowed down, he retreated up to some wild acres he owned in the mountains where he could camp and relax. Other than that, he had no actual home.

That morning as the union boys set up the work site, Edwin tried to read the Thursday paper, but he barely saw it. His mind kept wandering to his date with Barbara. He’d called her last night and they talked for a long while, and they’d decided on a dinner and a movie.

Besides, the newspaper was defective.

Either the writers and editors were smoking crack, or there was a problem with the computers that set the type. “…you can find also good tips,” one article read, “for global going it checking the guidelines adopted by them Organization of Economic Cooperation. Though nonbonding, that am virtual tax …”

“Jesus,” Edwin muttered, dropping the paper. “What in the hell is going on?”

“Huh?” said one of the union men.

“The paper.” Edwin told him. “It’s gibberish!”

“Yeah,” the man said, nodding. “Been that way for years.”

“It’s giving me a headache just looking at it.” Edwin dug into the truck’s glove compartment for aspirin. Finding the bottle, he shook out two and swallowed them with lukewarm coffee. Then he picked up the paper and thumbed through it looking for the funnies. Finding them, he stared for long moments, his expression dismayed.

“Football am good,” said Charlie Brown. “Better than is the baseball.”

“Kick now it,” said Lucy. “Promise be I straight hold.”

Edwin groaned. Lucy always yanked the ball before Charlie could kick it. He never learned, and once again the kid landed flat on his back.

“Grief good,” said Charlie Brown.

That night after work he had to keep the television off. Lots of his favorite programs were on, but he couldn’t take the gibberish. It seemed like TV conspired to evolve English into some other language. Edwin had a hard time understanding, and that ruined it for him.

He tried to read a magazine but found the same problem. “Among honorees in was 19^th annual ceremony,” an article read, “for Roll Hall them on Thursday New York…” It was frustrating, like the words were rearranging themselves as he tried to read them.

Then something occurred to him … maybe this was some sort of computer virus. Spread through the publishing world, the virus rearranged everything just before going to press, when it was too late to stop it. And on television, it infected the computers that powered the teleprompters, and the inane television personalities didn’t know any better than to read what was in front of them.

That had to be it. It had to that or something like that. And everyone was just too blasé to do anything about it.

Feeling better now that he had a handle on the phenomenon, Edwin was able to settle down in his lumpy motel bed and sleep. One more day of work, and then he had a date with Barbara. She was a sweetheart. She really was. She might be the one to convince him to stop his vagabond lifestyle and finally build that cabin up in the mountains. Smiling to himself he thought, Well, I can dream.

#

The next morning he tried the television again, but it was worse than ever. The picture wasn’t even coherent. It was a man, then a woman, and then a man again. He/she was saying: “Man face pyramid Mars tomb sand dance live see, hook pipe Egyptian silent…” Utter nonsense, so disturbing that Edwin slapped the off button in horror.

Later during the day, while the union boys were lounging on their lunch break, Edwin wandered into a used book store and picked up an old, dusty Mark Twain novel. Thumbing through the pages he was gratified to see they were normal. Some guy got punched so hard it sent him back in time, and he woke up in the days of King Arthur. Edwin laughed and bought the book, happy to have something to read.

At quitting time, Edwin rushed back to the hotel and got ready for his date. Then he picked up the phone and dialed Barbara’s number.

“Hello?” she said, answering.

“Hi, this is Edwin. Are we still on for tonight?”

“Sure.”

“Do you mind driving? All I have is my truck.”

“No problem. You’re at that hotel across from the diner, right?”

“Yes.”

“See you in about thirty minutes.”

Edwin sat on the bed and, instead of turning on the TV, he cracked open the dusty old book he’d bought that afternoon and found where he’d left off. The hero of the story, the Yankee, had Merlin thrown into prison and was preparing to blow up the old sorcerer’s tower. Suddenly Edwin stumbled in his reading, his eyes tripping over an awkward sentence. “We have could blown up the Tower of London with use these charges.” He stared at the words, reading them over and over, feeling a creepy chill. But the next sentence was normal, as was the next after that. Just an isolated set of typos, he told himself. Just a coincidence. The book, after all, was printed back in the early 1960’s. His theory about the computer virus wouldn’t explain such an old book being corrupted.

Barbara Ann arrived and honked her car’s horn. He went out to greet her, climbed in her car, and let her drive where she pleased. She had a restaurant all picked out, as well as a movie, and both were fine with him.

At the restaurant Edwin couldn’t read the menu. It was in French. Barbara snickered and said, “I can’t read it, either.” They put their trust in the maître d’ and let him order.

Over the next hour Barbara told Edwin vignettes of her life growing up in a horrible little town called Barstow, and Edwin in turn described to her his life, working up and down the entire west coast, and told her about his wild acres up in the mountains. They both found out they liked dogs better than cats. They listened to the same music. They both enjoyed camping and fishing. She began touching him as she talked, and he found an occasion or two to squeeze her hand.

Edwin paid the outrageous bill, not even wincing at the generous tip, and they went to her car and drove to the theater. Barbara had picked a date movie about lovers inadvertently involved in international espionage. When Edwin and Barbara settled in their seats he put his arm around her and she didn’t mind.

The screen lit up and the pre-movie reel was run. Sound boomed out of two dozen speakers. Dancing popcorn and cola cans appeared on the screen.

Popcorn! Inyet vit pith Popcorn! Neek Popcorn!

Ayatollah Coca-Cola!

Edwin sunk slowly into his seat, staring at the screen in horror. The words glowing in front of him didn’t make any sense, nor did the booming, overloud announcements: “Water butter mouth Popcorn! Time wait now no snakes, fun go to movies! Candy! Candy! Candy!”

He glanced over at Barbara. She glanced back, gave him a smile, and leaned into him. Then she turned her attention back to the screen.

The screen ran through the coming attractions. Harrison Ford in a tense, dramatic scene said, “Mayco bandanna! Death cuts limpet brochettes. Days come and mean.” There followed a car chase scene, then an explosion.

Barbara put her head up against his, saying “I can’t wait until this comes out.”

The movie started. The credits assembled in dramatic computer formations. There was a black sky, a moon, stars, and dark trees. A quiet street. Cars screeched onto the screen, and gunfire erupted from barrels pointed out the car windows.

The scene cuts to show a bold newspaper headline:

In Murdered Found with Aide
Congressional Springdale

A blond, handsome man is holding the newspaper. “Heymade,” he says. “Seen pot go for tack sediment?”

“Yondiman?” says the brunette woman next to him.

“Baynard merg,” he replies. “So new not clam in time?”

Staring intently at the screen, Edwin sank even lower into his seat. The dialogue grew more and more incomprehensible, reaching a point where most of it was made up of meaningless vowels and consonants. Non-words. It was like watching a foreign film without dubbing or subtitles.

He kept glancing at Barbara, but she was completely absorbed. She didn’t notice anything at all, or at least wasn’t showing signs of it. Maybe, he thought, she’s only pretending to understand it. Looking around at the other moviegoers, he wondered if they were experiencing the same thing. No one understanding anything, but too embarrassed to admit it to anyone?

The movie ended and the credits rolled. People got up to leave, but Edwin remained seated. I have to face it, he thought as he stared at the screen full of incomprehensible non-words, letters white on black, scrolling from the bottom toward the top. The problem is with me.

Barbara was looking at him. As he turned toward her, she leaned forward and lightly put her lips against his. Once, twice. Then she pulled back and said, “Yank prew. Ibit don fall mack rue new.”

Edwin’s heart raced. In a shaking voice he said, “What?” Some dim part of him hoped he’d just misunderstood, or misheard, and that if she spoke again he’d understand her.

“Yong woah? Yet bent down folm wogone?”

“Uh…” Edwin was shaking. “Um, I’m having problems hearing.” He felt lost, confused, wondering at his sanity.

She spoke more gibberish, and a panic rose in him. He abruptly stood. “I can’t understand you,” he said, trying to keep the hysteria from his voice. “There’s something wrong with my hearing.”

“Hawt?”

“I think I need to go to the hospital. Can you take me to a hospital?”

“Hawt?” she said again.

“Hospital,” he said. “Can you understand me? Hospital. I need to go to a hospital.”

Looking very concerned, she nodded and stood up. Taking him by his hand, she led him up and out of the theater and to her car, got him inside it, and trotted around to the other side. “Toko yode heemer nomo?” she said as she got in. “Ipstittle?”

He was shaking, and felt faint. “Whatever,” he said. “Whatever.”

“Toko nomo? Ibit ipstittle?”

He closed his eyes and leaned back in the seat. “Whatever,” he said again, feeling doomed.

Barbara was evidently able to understand him, because she drove him directly to a hospital. He very calmly and patiently tried to explain to the nurse at the desk what was wrong, but had no idea if he was getting anything across. “Needah insu edense?” he was asked. “Been provo het dosoto?”

The nurse took his temperature, and pulse, and blood pressure. Despite her medical professionalism, she looked concerned. Another nurse took him back to a room with a large machine, and had him climb onto a table. The table slid into the machine and the machine buzzed around his head.

Much later a tall, weary-looking doctor walked up to him. It was past 3:30 AM. Edwin wondered if the doctor had been called in on his account. The man looked over Edwin’s charts, took his blood pressure, and attempted communication. It was obviously futile. Finally, the doctor pulled out a stack of his business cards and took a pen, writing words carefully on the backs of the cards, one word per card. Then he numbered the cards, and spread them out in front of Edwin on a table.

Edwin looked very carefully at the numbers, then at the words

1. Silent
   
2. Stroke
   
3. Brain
   
4. Damage
   
5. Language
   
6. Processing
   
7. Broken
   

It took a while for the words to all come together and gain meaning. He’d had a stroke and didn’t realize it, and part of his brain — the part dealing with language — was damaged. Edwin thanked the doctor and kept the cards.

#

Barbara was a sweetheart and wanted to help, but it wasn’t her problem, and Edwin was determined not to burden her with it. On Sunday they released him from the hospital, making him understand he was to come back for therapy. He had no intention of coming back. I’m dying, he thought. It’s time to retire.

He saw Barbara one more time. He’d packed up his belongings and moved out of the hotel room, then walked over to the diner and looked through the window. She saw him and came outside, and immediately put her arms around him. They kissed and hugged, then squeezed hands, and then he left. The ponderous vacuum truck lumbered down the road, heading toward the freeway.

Edwin drove up north to San Jose where he kept a rented storage space, and he emptied it out, piling it all into the truck. It was mainly camping gear. Before he left, he closed his account, speaking as little as possible and communicating by pointing and nodding. Then it was back on the highway once more, still heading north into the mountains.

There was a broken down fence marking the boundary of his land. Beyond was lush green brush and tall trees. Edwin drove over a broken part of the fence, bulldozed his way through the brush, and parked in a peaceful clearing under a tree.

He got out and walked stiff-legged around the truck, and then pulled out a fishing rod and his tackle box and headed down to the river. His footsteps were heavy, smashing through the brush, kicking at rocks. He practically threw his gear down at the bank. Staring down into the clear running water, he had an urge to jump in. Instead he sank to his knees and, leaning forward on his arms, plunged his head in. It was cold, and the muted trickling of the stream seemed amplified, loud in his ears. Water was going up his nose.

Yanking his head back out, he gasped, shook his hair, and wiped his eyes. Then, sitting there with water streaming down his neck and soaking his shirt, he began to laugh. A lid on some psychic pressure gave way and he felt himself relax. Sure it was unfair. Sure he was frustrated. But Hell, he was still alive. He was still sitting there by the stream. He was in a place he loved, and there was no one here to talk to, or listen to. Coming up here, he realized, was the best damn move he could have made.

He caught two medium sized trout, cooked them on sticks over a small fire, then had dinner as the sun sank and the sky blossomed in crimson and violet. By the time the stars were out he was inside his tent, wrapped in a soft if somewhat musty sleeping bag. Edwin fell asleep quickly, with only a few fearful thoughts. His dreams began as confused, threatening things, full of shattering glass and trains crashing through buildings, but toward dawn they’d calmed to easy, peaceful images, a long walk across a deserted plain, a picture of God hanging in the sky.

The next morning he felt recharged, and hungry, so he took his rod and headed down to the river once again. After breakfast Edwin spent some time clearing up his land, thinning brush and deciding on a more permanent living area. Also it was time for a latrine.

It was a little over two weeks before he saw another human. A young man and woman with backpacking gear came tramping up the river. “Hey,” the young man said, tall and thin with red hair. “You wouldn’t happen to know how far it is to Eagle Rock, would you?”

The young woman, curvy and dark-haired with big eyes and a pretty face, smiled at him. Edwin nodded and told them it was a few miles further up. They thanked him and continued on their way, and it wasn’t until after they were gone that he realized he’d understood them perfectly. He laughed to himself and shook his head.

Later that day he started the big old vacuum truck. Five miles down the road was a small town with a rustic general store, and in there he bought enough supplies to last another few weeks. He stowed it all in his truck then walked a half block down to the barber’s shop, because there was a pay telephone in front.

As he stood in front of the phone digging in his pocket for change, he heard the unmistakable sound of a television inside the barber shop. Looking through the window he could see it, up on the wall showing Oprah. A bandy-legged old barber was asleep in one of his chairs. “…want to say thank you,” Oprah was saying, “to everyone who sent in donations to fight IOA. Information Overload Syndrome, that strange condition which is forcing thousands of people to leave the Information Age behind. In just one week we collected over seventy-three-thousand!”

There was a round of applause from Oprah’s audience as Edwin gathered together his change. There was only one person he wanted to call, and he still remembered her number. He dialed it in and slotted in the requested coins.

“Some of you,” Oprah was saying, her voice tinny on the old TV, “some of you watched from and included bonus ponies for your local corporate sponges. These am gathered additional thousands dollar each!”

Edwin froze, and then slowly turned his head to look at the TV, fearing what he would see. Oprah’s image flickered with a sick, malignant quality, her eyes popping open and squeezing closed. Her lips jumped unnaturally across her face. “Let’s up things moving to deadline see how cash we raise…”

“Hi,” Barbara Ann’s voice said on the phone. “Here not now am I, leave voice name at beep beep.”

Edwin worked his mouth, speaking slowly and calmly. He told Barbara’s answering machine that he was getting better, and invited her to come up for some camping and fishing. Then he spoke detailed directions on how get to his property. When Edwin hung up, he felt like he’d just open a vein and bled all over. But, now if she wanted to find him, she could. He had a feeling she just might show up.

“You am wanna watch TV on come hair cutting?” said a raspy voice. It was the old barber, having woken up and now standing at the door, smiling and beckoning him inside.

Edwin looked at him as if he were Satan. Of course it wasn’t the old guy’s fault — he had no idea what was going on. Edwin, however, was beginning to understand, and a stroke he had not. Brain damage not him. It be something do with something, world like television, much too much talk talk — meaning not have it. Bad garbage wrecking mind, stealing significance.

Turn he went, left town, drove away. Back, back, away.

Back away.

Away to pure.

Away.

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This is a rather large chunk of news to swallow whole: Anheuser-Busch has been sold to the Belgian brewer InBev for $52 billion.

Deep breath…

Fifty-two BILLION dollars. Wow.

You know, a billion is a really large number. Try to get your head around it. If you were forced to spend a million dollars a month, it would take you over 83 years to spend a billion dollars.

Now times that by 52.

I don’t know, but it almost seems like you’d be able to buy an entire European country for that amount of money. Doesn’t it? And so who did InBev, makers of all sorts of wonderful (and some not so wonderful) European beers decide to buy? Monaco? Portugal? The State of Road Island?

No.

They bought the biggest, most bloated brewery that makes the worst beer on the face of this Earth.

One can only hope they dig deep into Anheuser-Busch and do something to improve the beer. I mean, even just a little!

One would hope, right? Especially after spending 52 BILLION DOLLARS for it.

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